Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller

Day 5: Avoiding Avoidance

No use in denying it. I weigh 162 lbs today. Two pounds up from yesterday.

Oh well, these things happen. Weight fluctuates. It’s one of the reasons experts say to only weigh in once a week; it’s easy to feel guilty and derail as you go up and down the scale. I’ve chosen to keep track daily because I have a tendency of waking up with this feeling that I must have gained weight (whether or not I actually have), then deciding I must have already failed and should console myself by eating whatever I’d like. Over the years of trying to be good and weigh in only once a week, I started to realize that I was pretty much always going to sabotage my own efforts if I couldn’t have an honest daily accounting on all fronts. So every day I hit the scale.

Now that I’ve been going through this stupid process for years, I’ve learned to be kinder to myself. But what I haven’t learned (fully) is to stay on target. In the past – as in, the past few weeks – I’ve woken up, weighed in, and congratulated myself on incremental loss with a bagel for breakfast. I’m always able to rationalize with myself that another choice is either healthier (physically or emotionally), or in some way what I must do to be a better person or have a better life, etc. That SO can’t happen anymore.

I’m not completely sure where yesterday went awry, but guessing it was dinner with The Man’s parents. I didn’t eat a lot during the day, overall. Breakfast as a beet, plus eggs, mushrooms & parsley scramble. At the movies I had one serving of chocolate coated almonds. Dinner was two helpings of broccoli & cheese casserole, a piece of french bread, some sauerkraut, a hot dog (no bun), about two ounces of this amazing New York strip, and two glasses of champagne. All of that sounds ridiculous now that I’m typing it out. It was what was on the table, so it’s what I ate. It’s hard saying no to food in an Italian household. You can’t just politely decline – everybody needs the full explanation, it’s too exhausting to bear.

Oh well, today’s another day.

This morning I had a egg white & spinach scramble, topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese (yum). For lunch I’m going to have sauteed Swiss chard, onions, and mushrooms and a beet. Tonight after Bikram practice I’m going to hope to have enough energy to go to the grocery store and stock up – I want to go on the Thrive nutrition plan at some point this week, and be able to stop thinking about what I’m going to cook next.